Cronozilla wrote:Going forward I don't think it'll be as much of an issue since we have standardized online networks and games being cut off are now due to individual publishers, rather than backbone services. Pretty much everyone is running their own stuff now.

Well, unless your online network is called Games for Windows Live.

I wouldn't consider GFWL a network that's being used going forward considering it's been all but abandoned for a few years.

Key-Glyph wrote:

Cronozilla wrote:Key, I believe the technical term for the solution to your issue is called, "Sequels".

I actually typed the following line in my original post but decided to take it out:

"I know, I know... just by New Leaf."

It has improvements too. So, there's that.

It's not that you can't complete the stuff you're missing, you just have to find people to help you out. If you're ever going to a convention, put out some feelers.

I am delighted to share my thoughts on Halo 5, complete with spoilers covered in tags. I played through on Legendary in solo, to get the Lone Wolf achievement. I thought the single player campaign was decent. I think there are some nagging things in the game that I have gripes about, but overall I am pretty satisfied with the gameplay.

Positives: + Promethean Knights don't do that teleport one shot anymore, but they still are pretty annoying. I don't like the puzzle of shooting their left and then right shoulder, then having them expose their backside. Seems monotonous especially when fire is raining down from everywhere else on the map. I usually resort to explosive weapons that splash and kill them of easier.+ Gorgeous Visuals+ All the alien species speak in English once more, which is a nice effect. Grunt comic relief is back, and lovely.+ The story. It's convoluted, but it's still decent. Not original trilogy good, but still decent. I'll also talk about this in the negatives.+ Controls. You can now hop and climb a lot of obstacles and climb ledges with a holding of the A button. Allows you to get some pretty unique views.+ Non-linear routes. Often there's more than one way to approach enemy positions and accomplish objectives. You can often reveal hidden routes by charging through grates, cave-ins, etc. It's a cool feature that opens up many possibilities.

Negatives:- Revival. It's nice to have this in co-op, but playing the single player experience is often a detriment. Because..- Teammate AI is abysmal. Say you're on a nice high vantage point and an enemy takes you down. You're not going to be revived, because they can't climb simple jumps. Better start from your last checkpoint...- Checkpoints. There's too few of them. Each little area of the level requires you to clear all of enemies out before you get a checkpoint. This is incredibly frustrating, because what I mean when I say this is Halo has often been a game of enemy waves. And if you clear a wave, usually you'd get a checkpoint, in the chance of your death. I feel like Halo 5 changes the formula. You die at the end of wave 3 of Prometheans? You're starting over from wave 1. This added to my frustration when I'd get nearly to the next area, only to get wiped out or see my teammates unable to revive me. I felt this was the most unforgiving Halo game yet in that regard.- Story

This is the first game of the mainline Halo series that Brian Reed has been the lead writer. I don't think he's as good as Chris from Halo 4, despite Brian Reed having experience as a writer at Marvel. And I understand in the past trilogy of games, there was less of a world that was constructed through expanded universe contributions through novels, comics, you name it. You had Halo: Fall of Reach, Halo: The Flood, and Halo First Strike, all excellent Novels by Eric Nylund, with The Flood being written by William Dietz. Things were a little more simple when you had the Covenant trying to off humanity with the Flood also consuming everything.

As the series got more traction, there were so many novels out there meant to expand the universe, provide backstory and help foreshadow the coming games. Like, did you know that the Rookie from Halo 3 ODST was killed in a novel later on and that motivated the rest of the ODST squad including Buck to become Spartans? Me neither. So we have this Reclaimer trilogy that focuses heavily on the Forerunners, and the remnants of their civilzation existed in the past games without any real knowledge of who they are without reading novels about them. That and what happened to the enhancements the Librarian gave to the Master Chief in Halo 4? They're not even present. The Janus key? Wrapped up when Locke kills Jul'Mdama. Halsey wanting revenge on UNSC? That's not in there either. It just makes me feel like there's a bunch of holes in the story of Halo 5 that ignores so much of Halo 4, probably due to changing writing teams.

Another point is a lot of the production value that went into hyping Halo 5 doesn't match the quality of writing that I think we saw in Halo 5. Hunt the Truth podcast was amazing, but yet there's not much of a chase once the game begins. ONI isn't mentioned much at all about being a shadow organization aiming to keep this all hush hush and to label Master Chief as a traitor. Which I think sets a really weird tone when you're experiencing Halo 5. Seems a little disjointed to say the least. I expect some retcons to the story soon enough.

I was excited about the revealing of the antagonist and who should take up The Mantle. I don't think it's trite at all, and think that there's some logical explanations why things are happening the way they are. It's pretty exciting, especially with the Legendary Ending. But I'm still cautious about these Guardians, that could just lay waste to anything and everything without facing too much resistance. It will be interesting to see what is done in Halo 5.

That said, the multiplayer is really enjoyable and I think that eclipses the shortcomings of the single player. But I love a Halo story, and the series is taking a strange turn with the past narratives of Halo 4 and Halo 5. You can't overlook that if you've enjoyed the previous Halo Campaigns. If I ranked them independently, I'd give the solo experience a 7.0 and the multiplayer experience a 9.0.

This is by far the best Telltale game I've played so far. There is just so much more depth here then the the previous TT games characters are interesting and have quite a bit of backstory the choices/interactions feel meaningful and this has some of the best combat QTE pretty much ever. They did a great job of setting the atmosphere up the animation is beautiful, the voice cast is great, and the music is perfect. In fact the opening they use for each episode is probably one of my favorite openings for a game or even tv series in years.

Probably the best thing about the game is the main character you are the Sheriff of Fable town but you also happen to be the Big Bad wolf so your reputation isn't exactly glowing and it shows especially early on since most characters despise and fear you. The whole game is basically a balancing act of trying to prove you are a good guy while at the same time trying to solve a case which often puts you in situations where playing by the rules isn't an option if you want to find the truth.

Another great feature of this game is the combat unlike previous games the QTEs aren't all about survival in fact there are many times where you have to restrain yourself from going to far. I didn't realize this till the second fight when after at first getting my ass kicked my character got pissed and ended up beating a guy half to death I only realized that I was going to far and that stopping was an option once I got a prompt to literally rip his arm off . If you want to go through the game in a positive way the key is to realize how to ride the line of keeping yourself safe in combat while not brutalizing your enemy above and beyond whats necessary.

Altogether this is a great game that I highly recommend. However I did bump into some issues with the game on the XB1 that seemed hardware related. Beginning around the middle of Episode 4 the game started hanging on me mostly around saves, loads, and achievements. This wouldn't have been so bad if not for that fact that I had 10-20 second hangs often right in the middle of a QTE fighting sequence . The game was still playable but it was a noticeable issue that really broke the tension in a lot of situations. The disc was new and was damage free so I'm guessing either the choices/achievements were having sync issues with Xbox Live or the game just had a hard time accessing the XB1 internal harddrive.

Noise has already posted about us beating this, but I figured I'd finally take some time to jot down my thoughts. My experience with Iron Brigade has been a long and difficult journey, not because of the game itself but because of its crazy four year history bouncing between Double-Fine and Microsoft, Games for Windows Live and Steam, until finally bug-fixes made it playable earlier this month. I've now beaten it and its expansion, Rise of the Martian Bear, and as of this morning I have 1 remaining achievement to earn to complete the entire game.

But what is Iron Brigade? Well, it's a combination of Tower Defense and mech game, where players pilot modifiable machines called Trenches that can call down turrets for deployment or fight with a variety of effective weaponry against legions of TV-powered creatures called Monovisions, or Tubes by those who have to kill them. Technology is a mixture of the past(the game takes place in the wake of World War I) and the future(the expansion turns your walking battleship into a space shuttle and gives you weapons like laser cannons). The war against the Monovisions is a worldwide affair, with theaters in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific, all culminating in massive boss battles, until finally coming to a conclusion on the barren wastes of Mars through a series of considerably more difficult levels in Rise of the Martian Bear.

How is it? It's ok in single player, but I much prefer it in 4-player co-op, because players can really pick a niche to dominate in while relying on others to fill in their defensive gaps. I typically played with the heaviest trench and the biggest firepower available to soften targets before they hit our turrets or finish them off if they managed to make it past. Noise would switch off support duties and often carried anti-air weapons to protect us from aerial Tubes. Fastbilly took cannons or sniper rifles to blast the crap out of whatever he wanted, while Xen would deck himself out to build turrets and gather scrap, the resource needed for construction. This proved an effective combination that got us through quite a few scrapes, though sometimes we would have to switch things up to achieve desired results and rankings. And once the main story was done, we began pitting ourselves against the survival missions, facing wave after wave of oncoming enemies in the hopes of unlocking new gear, money, and experience towards promotions.

Unfortunately it wasn't until earlier this month that this really became possible. When the game first came to Steam, it required players also log into Games for Windows Live and play it through there. Double-Fine finally got the rights back, but once it was finally unveiled on Steam, multiplayer was horribly bugged and plagued with crashes. Finally a bug fix handled these issues at the beginning of October, but the game is still prone to network troubles and lag. This close to the end, I'm trying not to let it get me down, though there were a few times where one of us would get kicked at a critical moment or right before some big milestone, causing that player to lose all progress in battle. This happened to me last Thursday night and left me more than a little pissed off.

I like the game. I enjoy building a better Trench, unlocking more vanity items for my pilot, going up in rank and using bigger and nastier guns. But with all of the problems over the years, I am also really glad this will finally be coming to a close. Now all I have to do is get through 30 waves in the final survival mission. I'm so close, I can feel it.

Man, that is a game! Wow! The atmosphere and ambiance of that game is some of the best I have ever seen in a video game. That is not a game, but a living and breathing world. It sucked me into the world so quickly. I loved the little touches like seeing all the splatters on Samus' visor and even being able to see her face sometimes. It's also one of the FPS games that make jumping actually easy and simple to do. The bosses are a real big pain, but they weren't impossible. It took me 5 tries to beat the final boss, but I went further with each try and I was learning throughout the fight. Just an amazing and wonderful game!